Hi All,

Nancy, Ian and I made a Memorial Day trip to Maryland's north-south wasp-waist in the west over Memorial Day from Saturday (27 May) evening to Monday afternoon (29 May). Actually most of Monday was spent west of the latitudinal pinch near Oldtown on the Potomac east of Cumberland. We made our base camp so-to-speak in Hancock. On Saturday evening we atlased a block that lies mostly in West Virginia (Berkeley Springs); Hancock SW. On Sunday (28 May) we split our time between Bellegrove NE a block that hosts the Sideling Hill Visitor Center on I-68, and Artemas NE that includes the northern part of Town Hill in Maryland and the hill country east of Artemas, PA.

The highlights of our Saturday evening of atlasing in WV were a family of Common Ravens in a quarry on US-522, fledgling Killdeer, a Carolina Chickadee nest, and a Red-bellied Woodpecker nest. We managed to tally 15 nesting confirmations in an hour and forty minutes, nesting is really firing-up out there along with the sun and humidity.

On Saturday we located 69 species in Bellegrove NE with 18 nesting confirmations. We had another raven family just west of the Sideling Hill cut on Mountain Road. We had several Broad-winged Hawks including a pair and a bird giving its languid mothlike territorial flight display. Not only were there broad-wings there was a pair of Red-shouldered Hawks and several red-tails. There are some extensive scrubby fields east of Sideling Hill on Resley Road loaded with Yellow-breasted Chats, Prairie Warblers, and Field Sparrows. We had nine warbler species including one migrant species - Blackpoll, and our first Black-capped Chickadees of the weekend. We capped our work in the block by confirming pigeon on the Sideling Hill roadcut and Northern Rough-winged Swallow in drainage pipes built into the visitor center.

We started our canvas of Artemas NE (58 species 13 confirmations) on East Shipley Road on the east slopes of Town Hill. A nice woodsy dirt road with rocky ribs sticking through in spots. We had Hooded and Worm-eating warblers, induced a pair of screech-owls to fuss in daylight, and in the process attracted an agitated male Rose-breasted Grosbeak. On the PA end of the road we confirmed Worm-eating Warbler and Yellow-billed Cuckoo, and Nancy found a migrating Wilson's Warbler. The male Worm-eating Warbler surprised me by giving a flight song, very different from its buzzy-trilled perch song - "swi-swi-sweet ti-ti-ti-ti-ti-ti-ti". Brand new species and confirmations for the block were Canada Goose, Mallard, and Tree Swallow; the "usual suspects" among increasing bird species. On West Shipley Rd (south of the block in Artemas CE) we had a singing CERULEAN WARBLER and saw a female Black-and-white Warbler. The area west of W. Shipley Rd is proposed for a large development.

On Sunday we spent much of our time on four roads running north from the Potomac in the Oldtown CW block (65 species 19 confirmations). The first road, Lower Town Creek Rd, was heavily wooded with state forest lands on the east side of the road. We saw Orchard Oriole (around an opening), nest building wood-pewees, another displaying Broad-winged Hawk, and Worm-eating Warbler. On Wagner Rd the habitat was dominated by dry shale ridges with twisted Virginia pine and oak (black, white, scarlet, and chestnut) with occasional wet stream crossings. We found Pine Warbler, Prairie Warbler, and confirmed Field Sparrow and meadowlark on this road. Wilson Rd on the west side of the block has extensive lush hayfields and woodlots where we had Yellow Warbler, another Orchard Oriole, and Grasshopper Sparrows. On MD-51 Nancy found an early fledgling BLACK-BILLLED CUCKOO. If there was bird emblematic of the weekend it was Yellow-billed Cuckoo, we had over 30 of them including several sightings; they were seldom out of earshot in wooded areas. The tent caterpillars are at their peak now and that correlates well with the numbers of cuckoos we encountered. It was a tiring, but productive and birdy, weekend.

Good atlasing,

Walter Ellison
MD-DC Atlas Coordinator - MOS
23460 Clarissa Road
Chestertown, MD 21620
phone: 410-778-9568
e-mail: 

"A person who is looking for something doesn't travel very fast" - E. B. White (in "Stuart Little")

"Are there *ever* enough birds?" - Connie Hagar as quoted by Edwin Way Teale in "Wandering through Winter"